A Russian court sentenced a US citizen to 12.5 years in a maximum-security penitentiary colony after he was convicted of narcotics charges.
Robert Woodland, 32, was arrested in Moscow in January and charged by authorities of attempting to sell methadone.
He is the latest US citizen to be imprisoned in the country, with some Western officials suggesting the Kremlin is “hoarding” Americans to trade for allies and operatives imprisoned abroad.
In a statement released after Mr. Woodland’s conviction on Thursday, Russian prosecutors said he had been caught while packaging a large quantity of narcotics at an apartment in the Russian capital.
They claimed he had been working with a large-scale criminal group and had transported 50-grams of the drug from a pick-up point outside the city.
His lawyer, Stanislav Kshevitsky, had initially denied the charges, saying officials had presented “no evidence” of drug sales before the court.
